Part 4

I awoke on the 29th in a pretty good mood and feeling much calmer than I had been the last several days, despite the fact I woke up at a pretty early hour. I decided to order myself some breakfast, and killed time waiting for it by messing around on my cell phone some more. After eating, I was paid another visit by one of the neurosurgery team. I had been told the previous night that, as long as there were no major issues, I'd be discharged, and, up to the time they had come in, I had not noticed any with the exception of the pain at the incision site. Though the nurse had told me as much yesterday, hearing one of the neurosurgical team telling me that pain around the incision is normal the first few days after surgery and that it will go away in the next few days was a comfort to me. I told the doctor that spoke to me that I had no other concerns at that time. With that having been said, another nurse came by to remove my IV. I asked if I still needed to be monitored as far as going to the bathroom, and I was told no. Since I was alert, coherent and stable, there was no need. With that said, I left my room to do exactly that.

I then returned to my room. When I sat down, out of instinct I reached up and touched part of where the incision on my head was. I had noticed it felt a little wet. That made me a bit uneasy, because, unlike with my stomach, I didn't think my head showing problems was something I should ignore. I called my nurse back to my room and had her look at it. She said when she looked, she didn't see anything that looked wet. I took that at the time to mean maybe I just hadn't fully dried my hands off when I came out of the bathroom or something, so the wetness was just water still on my fingers, and I let it go. She didn't seem concerned, and, up to now, the staff had been pretty well on top of things, so I didn't think she'd lie to me and say there was no problem if there really was.

After having watched some more toons on my cell, I ordered my lunch then informed Henry I was officially being discharged. He said he'd leave sometime around noon. It was going to be roughly a two hour drive to get from the house to where I was in Seattle, assuming things went well on the road. I made another trip to the bathroom, and, when I left that time, I had been asked to do a couple quick tests to gauge my balance and how well I could walk. Something they have to do with all patients apparently right before they get their discharge papers. I 'passed with flying colors' so I went to my room and my discharge papers were gathered.

When the nurse came back, she went over everything with me. Letting me know I'd need to make appointments with my physician (back in Shelton) both in a week to look things over and then again a week after that to have the sutures removed. She also went over the various different meds I was being given to take home with me. The most interesting thing though, came in something I spotted as I was re-reading the papers after she initially read them to me and had asked me if I had any questions.

Among what was written in all of the info that I was given was talk about how my shunt would need to be adjusted if I was around any kind of large magnet (such as that of an MRI). This is something I never recall seeing in any previous info packets with past shunts. As it turned out, the reason for this sudden bit of info I had never seen is that I don't have a regular shunt inside me. With every shunt I've ever had in my entire 36 years of life, it has always been a normal shunt. There are two types of shunts, that I know of. A normal VP shunt, which uses a hard plastic tubing and valves and programmable VP shunt, which is more precise apparently, but uses magnets, and the valves can be adjusted to different levels to compensate for problems that normal shunts can't without surgery.

This is not to say that my doctors in the past are in the wrong for not opting to use a programmable shunt with me in the past. I can only guess that my past neurosurgeons didn't see a need for anything more than a regular shunt. There are risks involved. Since the programmable one uses magnets, I now have to be very careful to tell any doctors that request things like MRIs about it ahead of time. That way my shunt can be set back to it's default level. In my particular case, though I have no idea what the number actually means, that level is 1.5. Now that I've got a programmable shunt in my head, if I'm not on top of things when it comes to places that rely on magnets, I could make things extremely bad and even dangerous for myself now.

There are, however, a few positives to this programmable shunt as well. From what I understand, if I feel my condition beginning to slip, meaning if I start developing frequent migraines again, all I would need to do now is visit any place that has a neurology department and they can adjust the threshold level on the valve to fix the problem. I wouldn't need to resort to getting surgery right away anymore. Adjusting the threshold will relieve the pressure, which, as I understand it, will fox the issue without me needing to visit the OR again.

I didn't think to ask the normal lifespan of the programmable shunts, but, from the impression I got from the doctors, it's much longer than a normal shunt, so, barring a catastrophic incident, I might not need surgery again for a very long time. I may need to go in to have my level adjusted, but that apparently doesn't require any kind of surgery at all.

So, after hearing that, I have to admit I was feeling really happy and the nurse was happy for me too. She even joked that hopefully it meant that when I finally left the hospital, I wouldn't see her again for a very long time. So, with my papers signed, she left the room. I then climbed back into my bed. It was literally only just now though that I noticed a problem that almost immediately took the smile back off my face. When I got back in bed, I caught sight of the pillow my head had been resting on. The pillow had a huge discolored spot right around the area where the part of my head with the incision on it had been resting. Out of instinct, I reached up and touched my head again, much like I had done earlier in the day. Since, this time, I knew wet fingers weren't my problem, when she came back I showed her the pillow. She wasted no time and left again to check with my neurosurgeon. He came back himself and told me something that, in hindsight, was something I already knew, but, my anxiety being what it is, I didn't really think about it. Much like the pain near the incision on my belly, a little bit of seepage is expected after having just gone through surgery. He assured me I had nothing to worry about, and that it would close up within a few days.

So with what was now the last of my major worries alleviated, all that was left to do was wait for Henry to arrive, then he'd pick me up, I'd go home and this whole thing would finally be behind me...

Sadly, the universe wasn't ready to stop messing with me yet. 2:30 came and went, well beyond even the cushion time Henry gave himself to account for possible traffic issues. Because he was driving though, he couldn't answer his phone, so I could do nothing but wait for him. 3:00 still no sign of him. By 3:30 my anxiety had begun acting up. I was starting to worry something bad had happened. My nurse happened to come in a few minutes later wanting to run another set of vitals on me, so when she saw I was getting upset, she asked if I wanted it. I said yes, but I said I felt bad saying so, as I had technically already been discharged.

It was then she made a point of reminding me of something. I was still wearing the hospital band that had my patient info and data on it. She said the hospital doesn't remove them, even after discharge, due to circumstances much like that exact moment. Sometimes, even after discharge, patients might still need help until their ride home arrive. And since the anti-anxiety meds I had been getting up to now were pills anyway, it didn't matter that I didn't have an IV anymore. I thanked her and she quickly went to get what I needed.

Around 4, I got a message form Steve, who, by the way, has been in New York visiting family, which is why this entire series of journals only mentions Henry. Henry had texted him to tell him that he'd apparently gotten lost trying to find the hospital. Apparently, Seattle is huge, and since we'd never been there before, that made things difficult even with directions. I was told this and told that Steve was helping him to get to me. It took about another 45 minutes, but he finally arrived. I was given a change of clothes, then, after heading to the discharge pharmacy to pick up the new meds I'd bee prescribed, we were finally on our way home.

Three hours later, we had made it, and I can't tell you how happy I was. This whole thing put me through more anxiety in roughly two weeks than I've been through all year. I'm just glad it's over. I have to make a couple appointments with my primary care physician, but other than that, there's nothing left I have to worry about with this mess of a journey I was put through.

That being said, there were a few other things I didn't mention in the other journals as to not break the flow when I was writing that made certain parts of the experience annoying.

One of which was trying to get the Toredol (after having been told my surgery was delayed the first time). When I was initially told by the neurosurgical team that I wasn't having the surgery that day, I requested the Toredol. They did approve me to get it, and they left to set that up. But five minutes later, one of the nurses came in telling me I couldn't get the Toredol because I was supposed to have surgery that day. I found this annoying and called the nurse out on it, because, one, she wasn't even my regular nurse, she was one of the in between nurses, two, she apparently hadn't been told my surgery was cancelled for the day, and three, the fact that the neurosurgical team didn't communicate that they had already confirmed the Toredol and that they were in fact going to set it up not even five minutes prior with said nurse. I mean, really? I get that you can't watch the whole hospital, but you could have at least told the department directly so they could have informed the in between nurse.

Then there was the fact that, because they were just curtained off sections and not rooms meant and no time during my entire time did I ever get any actual 'quiet time'. Mind you, this wasn't a huge issue even despite that, because, for the most part, a majority of the patients were pretty quiet anyway. But there were a couple patients that I swear either had bad short-term memory loss, dementia or just loved hearing the sound of their own voice. There was one particular patient, during my second to last day, who, almost every fifteen minutes would call out for the nurse. Not with the nurse call button, I mean verbally raise their voice and call out loudly to get attention, then he would ask for either pain meds or arthritis meds. I don't know whether the guy legit couldn't remember he'd taken them just minutes before, or if he was trying to abuse the meds or what. I will say, I ASSUME it's just a bad memory, because neither his calling out nor his requests/subsequent refusal were ever met with any hostility on his part. He was always level headed, just loud and asking on a frequent basis.

Another annoyance, though this is an incredibly minor one given I had other ways around it, was the fact that, with it being a ward area, I didn't have a TV. If I felt the urge to watch something, I just pulled up Disney+ on my cell, which meant I could not only watch something, I could choose what I watched and didn't have to deal with commercials.

You might think that I'd say one of the annoyances was the fact my surgery was delayed, but no. I told Henry this and I stand by it. Yes, I was upset. Yes, I had an anxiety attack. But I wasn't angry or annoyed. The one thing that kept me from getting angry over it was the fact that at least I had been warned the night before of the possibility it could be delayed. If I had woken up, the day of the surgery, and I got told my surgery was being pushed back WITHOUT having been warned that there was a chance of it happening, or I woke up being told "Oh you're going to have the surgery for sure today' and then suddenly got told I wasn't, THEN I'd have been annoyed. Heck, I'd have been pissed at that point, but the fact things were communicated to me regarding the possibility meant something to me, even though I was left an anxious mess after the fact.

The one major annoyance the fact there was only one bathroom I ever saw in the ward. Considering the ward had like 30 or 40 beds in it, I had to wonder how the hospital didn't have to clean up after constant 'accidents' caused by people being forced to wait. Now, admittedly, as I said back in one of the earlier journals, I can't say for certain there was in fact only one. I just know that, at least for the half of the ward I saw when I walked up and down it during my trips to and from my bed, I only ever saw the one. Considering this was the neurosurgery ward though, and I did take note of the fact there were a lot of older people there, it might also just be that many of the other patients were restricted to their beds/restricted to only using urinals. It just baffled me that, with all the beds in that ward, during the course of my stay, I only had to wait to use the bathroom three times. Yes, I counted. Even then, one of those I did so voluntarily because an older woman in a walker needed it, and I told her I wasn't going to ask her to wait when I could hold it - A gesture both she and the nurse that was helping her appreciated.

Despite the fact the journey was full of anxious moments, when those are taken out of the equation, I can honestly say I left the experience 99% satisfied. Between the staff's treatment of me in Mason Clinic and their no-nonsense right-to-the-point resolution of my initial issues, and the fact that not once at any point was I ever looked down upon or talked down to during the stay in Harborview, not even after having had my 'dumb' moment in my room after the surgery, I actually felt, for the first time IN YEARS like I was being treated the way hospitals and their staff are SUPPOSED TO treat their patients. Unlike the god-awful University of Michigan hospital, who talked down to me, ignored most of what I said and dismissed almost all of my concerns, I actually would WILLINGLY return to be treated to the hospitals here. Yeah, I'll probably still be an anxiety-driven mess, but at least I'll know I'm in good hands. I do hope, though, that I won't have to go through this again for a long time.

So, there you have it. The end of my hospital journey. I'm free of my migraines, and within a few weeks, I should be completely pain-free for the first time in a long while.